As I’ve posted on Facebook, if buffalo chicken’s wrong, I don’t want to be right. I love it. I’m eating some right now.

I’m on the vestry at church and teach Sunday school. I (usually) enjoy it.

I don’t get to watch live TV much, but I keep up with The Voice, How I Met Your Mother, Preachers’ Daughters, Duck Dynasty and … though it shames me to admit it, SecretLifeoftheAmericanTeenager (there, I said it) through various apps on my iPad.

Speaking of television series, I’ve seen every single episode of Roseanne, 90210 (the ’90s version), Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Golden Girls, Secret Life, How I Met Your Mother, Dollhouse, Breaking Bad and Preachers’ Daughters (which is still in its first season). That’s over the course of more than a decade, thanks to reruns, late nights with a baby son who had his days and nights confused and the loveliness that is Netflix.

In 8th grade I used to dye my hair red and looked like Claire Danes in My So-Called Life when it first aired. It didn’t help me get Jordan Catalano.

I have a pretty eclectic taste in music – from old black gospel, oldies and ’80s power ballads to alternative, indie folk and Memphis rap.

I’m not a member of the “done is better than perfect” camp. I want things done correctly and to the best of my ability (or, if it’s someone else, to the best of their ability).

I love creating art: with words, with paint, with pencils, with a camera, with digital software. It makes my soul sing.

I don’t like being cold or cool. I don’t like fans blowing on me, especially when I sleep. If I’m hot or nauseated ignore those things.

I both love it and hate it when people say, “These are all of YOUR kids?” I’m proud of them; I know they’re a handful at times, but God gave them to me for a reason.

Want to join in? Link up with my good friend Jean over at WinesAlot Diaries!

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I know what you’re thinking: ECHO is giving tips on cleaning?!

Yeah, I know, but I wanted to share something I found to be pretty effective.

Over the weekend I found a little trick that helped my kids and I not only clean, but stay motivated to do so. It’s really quite simple: work, then take a break, reward yourself, then get back to work. 

We finally had a pretty hot day Sunday – nearly 90 degrees – and my brothers and their families were planning to come over to my parents’ house to swim. My kids didn’t want to miss swimming with their cousins, but I REALLY needed them to do the cleaning we’ve been neglecting, so we incorporated swim time into our cleaning schedule.

(Of course, my no-filter brother chimed in here with criticism and said we should do a little every day. It’s a good idea in theory, but I fail at it tremendously. This is for those of us who suck at Cleaning A Little Every Day.)

Think about it: cleaning your room, when it was a mess like ours, can be overwhelming and you often don’t know where to begin. Breaking things down into smaller chores and planning to have it done in 15-30 minutes makes the task more manageable and helps keep you focused. And just like we need breaks when we’re at work and school, we need breaks when we’re doing housework because breaks help us rest and refresh.

Here’s the plan:

1. Assign tasks  We started with picking up clothes and either putting the clean ones away or getting the dirty ones ready to be washed (and picking up and putting shoes away goes with this), then moved on to decluttering, picking up toys and books, etc.). Whatever it was, we all did it. Like I have suggested before, we used dry erase markers to put a list up on the fridge.
2. Get to work We worked for 30 minutes, but 15 might be enough.  After 30 minutes was up, or once the child believed they’d completed their task and I’d okayed their work after inspection, we went out back for 10 minutes of pool time. Diligence was rewarded with extra pool time.
3. Take a break We all had to stop and take a 10 minute break, which ended up being 15-20 minutes by the time I checked everyone’s work and then they dried off enough to get back to work after swimming. It doesn’t matter if the task hasn’t been completed, everyone should take a break (especially my girls, because they started getting cranky). If the task isn’t finished, they have to pick back up where they left off when we started again, so they can see that procrastinating delays other tasks as well.
4. Start all over again.

Let it be known that they weren’t very eager to get out of the pool, so I had to threaten them with not allowing them to swim for the rest of the day (it was still very early afternoon at that point).

(And my littlest one decided she wanted to just “clean her room” and not abide by the specified tasks, however she still had work to do when the rest of us had finished. DON’T DEVIATE FROM THE PLAN, CHILD.)

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Here’s a belated Mother’s Day photo of me and my babies. Notice they’ve been swimming and I’m wearing a coat; it was in the 50s, but all of the kids, my brother and his best friend wanted to take a dip in the pool. Crazy lunatics.

What do you love about YOUR children? It’s so easy to get frustrated with them; I, for one, could stand to spend more time sharing the good things about them than complaining about the fighting they do.

If you haven’t joined in with doing her video prompts, play along this week because there’s one inspired by my video about putting college off last week.

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From early childhood we’re encouraged to make plans: plans for high school, plans for college, plans for careers, plans for family. So, like most of the rest of the world, I made plans. I wrote them down in a letter to myself just before my high school graduation. Five years later, my high school English teacher mailed those letters to us and I could see just how differently things turned out than I’d planned.

Ten years ago this week I was making plans to marry a man I loved dearly, the father of my child, and wrapping up loose ends with an impending move, taking final exams, quitting a job I loved, saying goodbye to my beloved hometown. I was looking forward to getting married, to making a home and family, to starting “happily ever after” with my future husband.

We were finalizing wedding plans, flowers, making appointments, making preparations for Jaiden and I to move to South Carolina. I would be a stay-at-home, because working to pay daycare seemed ridiculous, and I would continue college. Those were our plans.

Weeks before the wedding, my family and I took a road trip to Missouri to celebrate my grandfather’s 80th birthday, a trip that induced nausea on the curvy roads in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I remember the first wave of nausea and thinking, hoping, that I was just carsick (which never happens to me).

As it turns out, and as I found out on Mother’s Day 2003, I was pregnant. It was 10 days before our wedding and our oldest baby was not even a year old.

This was not in the plan, but my God, am I grateful for that child (and for his sisters as well).

There was a great sign on a little store near our apartment in Columbia that said, “Want to give God a good laugh? Tell him your plans!” God must have laughed so much at the plans I’ve made because most of them have changed.

Back then I didn’t know what I know now: that what happens is not always up to me.

Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us that we are not in control of our lives: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

I am inclined to say, “If only I’d learned that sooner,” but then I think having to learn that lesson the hard way is part of maturing. It’s a lesson you learn with time, a lesson you learn through making mistakes, a lesson you learn after you’d tried forcing square pegs into round holes.

When I found out that I was pregnant again, I was upset. I didn’t want to have another child yet, because it wasn’t time. My son’s conception was part of a series of irresponsible choices I made with results I thought I’d regret, and while I don’t recommend children before marriage I know that God had plans for me, for my children, for their father.

I don’t know what these plans entail, and sometimes I try to force my own will, but remembering one of the days my big plans changed is a good reminder that I need to “let go and let God” and submit to His will.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think in ten years I’d be where I am today – a single mom, twice divorced, the editor of a newspaper, still working on my associates degree. I never wanted to live in Tennessee, either, but here I am.

My life is not perfect – in fact, on paper, it seems downright horrible – but I am blessed (my God, am I blessed!) to have these three beautiful, happy, healthy, smart, wonderful children and I am blessed to have a family that pulls together to support us when we need it, whether we want them to or not. I have been blessed with the heartache of divorce because I can speak with firsthand knowledge that God carries us when we can’t carry ourselves. Likewise, I have been blessed with grace, with peace, with understanding that God’s not through with me yet, that He is still molding and shaping me into the woman He plans for me to be.

The fantasy of “happily ever after” didn’t work out for B and I, but we are now friends (which is not typical in these situations) and I feel blessed that I can call him and share with him the trials, triumphs and great joys that comes with raising our children. I certainly thank God for bringing him into my life, bad marriage aside, and for helping bring our children to my life.

The “happily ever after” fantasy didn’t work for my second marriage either, and sometimes I still find myself choked up with grief when I look at the new house, for instance, because I didn’t think I’d be here. I didn’t plan to ever be divorced again, I didn’t plan to ever have to make big house-related decisions alone, I didn’t plan to go through the NBA playoffs without him by my side. But I am.

Even though I know that God’s got this under control, I still sometimes grieve over all of the plans I made that aren’t going the way I thought they would.

I don’t know why certain things work out the way they do, but sometimes the best thing to do is to sit back and wait, to praise God for your blessings even in the darkest of the darkness, and allow Him to work in your life.

There’s a method to the madness, I know it. My children, my greatest blessings, are proof of that and they give me hope that God will, indeed, continue to bless me with prosperity and a blessed future.

At least I hope that’s what’s in His plan.

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Ready for our Q&A? Here’s our Mommyhood Game video:

Notes:

• It’s immensely helpful to have the questions written down, so that when your DSLR dies in the middle of the second interview and you have to use your iPad camera instead, you don’t have to try to remember them. Ask me how I know.
• It’s also helpful to ask the questions in the same order; it makes editing a lot easier.
• I really don’t snack on alcohol. lol. I have a sign on my door at work that encourages people to come in, especially if they have chocolate or alcohol, that the door is closed just because I wanted to limit distractions. lol. In fact, I rarely drink.
• I don’t recall really ever having seen the neighbor mow his grass, but this day he was. This is the “buster” Jaiden was talking to at the end. Also, I didn’t notice the trash in the yard when we filmed. Their dog tore up our trash that day.
• My doggies didn’t want to participate. Sad face.

Anyone want to link up with us?

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